CBC interviews McCosker about gray seal diet research
University of Maine Ph.D. student Christina McCrosker spoke with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) about her research into the diet of Northwest Atlantic gray seals. McCrosker was the lead author on a recent study involving the analysis of 247 scat samples taken from the gray seal herd at Monomoy Island off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She said she and her colleagues were able to determine which fish species the seals had eaten using DNA metabarcoding. This technique allowed the researchers to test samples with multiple DNA types at the same time. “We were able to find more species in general, and also more detections of some species in metabarcoding,” she said. Yahoo! News shared the CBC report.